SHAFTESBURY 250-4 (19pts) beat WEYMOUTH 249-9 (8pts) by six wickets

WEYMOUTH suffered another defeat as Shaftesbury ran out winners by six wickets in their County Division Two clash at Shroton.

With the clash moved to Shroton due to cracks in Shaftesbury’s home surface, a much-changed Weymouth won the toss and chose to bat first.

Experienced opener Andy Jarvis (24) was the pick of the top order, while Jack Sapsworth (22) and Jack Taylor (16) also contributed useful runs.

Numerous Weymouth players got starts as skipper Harry Mitchell (43) almost reached 50, and Weymouth were helped to 249-9 as Tim Guyett (36) smacked two sixes.

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Shafeek Urumancheri (28no) and Laurence Tonkin (22) also scored quickly as the Seasiders set Shaftesbury 250 to win.

However, a monster opening stand of 150 between Marc Doble and Matthew Boatwright (51) put the hosts firmly in the driving seat.

That was until Weymouth’s spin attack, including the evergreen Jarvis (2-42), steadily ate into the Shaftesbury line-up.

Doble was untouchable, though, and raced to 111 not out to help his side home with an over to spare, having blasted 19 fours and a six.

Speaking to Echosport, Mitchell said: “I just wanted everyone to give their best, to get 249 was par but people stepped up.

“Ideally we would have liked 20 more but we got some unlucky dismissals.

“With the ball, we had two seamers this week and the rest was spin.

“Jarvo got us back into the game but their bloke who hit 111 was fantastic and their other opener was very good as well, they took the game away from us.

“I came off the pitch thinking that everyone had done their best and that’s not been the case for a while. It was a good game.”

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